Monday, May 4, 2015

I'm pretty lucky to live within walking distance to Hungry Mother and its sister restaurant, State Park. State Park has more of a sports bar vibe with more casual food and beers, but you can still look for great Southern food here from the James Beard Award winning chef Barry Maiden. Instead of the refined dishes at Hungry Mother, think sandwiches, fried chicken, and the likes.

For those who are not familiar, this refers to Snappy Lunch in Mt Airy, North Carolina. The diner is famous for their pork chop sandwich where the boneless pork chop is covered in a sweet milk batter - yes, very much reminiscent of french toast. Think french toast stuffed with pork chop, then made into a sandwich with chili and cole slaw... The pork chop itself is ridiculously tender! A wondrously messy sandwich worth digging into.

Who knew spaghetti would work so well with BBQ sauce? It's just a bit saltier than bolognese, with a subtle kick. Bold and sweet, served with fluffy, buttery garlic bread. This has become another favorite of mine.

Monday, December 8, 2008

I've been trying to actually use my Cozmo cards, so when I had to go to LAX I decided to try out Baby Blues BBQ in Venice.The place was crowded and loud - typical small BBQ joint. I was excited that they had sweet tea!!! It's hard enough for me to find ppl in LA who even KNEW what sweet tea is.

We decided to share the Blue Devil plate which gives you 4 meats (although Texas and baby back will cost you extra :/), corn bread, and 2 sides. We got the Texas beef ribs, Memphis ribs, baby back ribs, and shrimps - with sweet potato and corn on the cob for the sides.The corn on the cob was sweet and moist.I initially enjoyed the blue cheese they put on the corn, but after a while it was too much for me and I really just wanted to taste the sweetness of the corn itself.

The ribs were all great. Pretty tender with beef < memphis < baby back in tenderness.Now, to show you the differences between the ribs, here are the bones, from top to bottom, of the Texas style beef ribs, then the baby back ribs, followed by the Memphis style long bone ribs.See the size differences? And the curved bone of the baby back!

In an attempt to hit $50 so we can use our cozmo card, we ordered two desserts: the banana pudding and pumpkin-sweet potato pie.I think there's too much starch in this pudding and I didn't really like the texture - too sticky.

The pumpkin sweet potato pie was good, although very rich.

This was a good BBQ place (next time I will probably get the baby back ribs, although they were all good), although it was relatively expensive (I want to go back before the end of the year to use my other cozmo card :D). Still, overall a much better experience than that LA BBQ Fest ....The ribs here are tender and had great flavor, and the ambiance was pretty cool.Baby Blues BBQ444 Lincoln Bl.Venice CA 90291310-396-7675www.babybluesvenice.com